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Sc2 is a great game. The multiplayer is great, otherwise we would not play it. The number of 1vs1 ranked ladder players is the same as always. Blizzard stated that 2mio players join every month (or season) play at least one game.
We cant compare apple with oranges. Counterstrike was always more popular than rts (cs was more popular than bw).
Its misleading if we blame blizzard, if sc2 is not as popular as other games, because there is no better formula for a competitive rts than bw/sc2. Also a reinvention/revolution of a genre cant be forced.
People forget that its often a question of fashion. Old music was not only good in the past. Queens, Beatles or Mozart is still good music, but young people dont listen it, because its not in! Its similar with games.
Instead of blaming the small popularity of sc2s on the gameplay, for which we have no better formula (it might be even the best formula, because it was very popular once), we should concentrate on issiues, where we already have solutions.
Make the game more interesting for casuals: One example is co-op. Its a fantastic addition, because you play with a friend against the computer. It doesnt require a lot of skill. You dont feel your-self dumb after a defeat. Its simply not frustrating. Its fun. Co-op is everything what the ladder cant be because of a human opponent.
Another point promote the game better: DeepMind plays sc2 is great, but its not enough. The starter kit needs an overhaul and a name change.
Reduce the requirements: It is possible! If you reduce the bit depth to 16 or 8 on lowest settings, you can play it on 10 year old pcs.
Free to play: The starter-kit is already free to play. You can make unranked 1vs1 free to play too, if you like. But the bigger issiue is that nobody knows anything about the starter kit (it doesnt sound free to play).
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On November 30 2016 05:47 todespolka wrote:
Sc2 is a great game. Its multiplayer is also great.
You cant compare apple with oranges. There is no other rts multiplayer game, which is as popular or more. If there was a better rts multiplayer game, we would not play sc2.
You overestimate marketing so much...
But I agree Sc2 is a great game
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On November 30 2016 05:52 FireCake wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2016 05:47 todespolka wrote:
Sc2 is a great game. Its multiplayer is also great.
You cant compare apple with oranges. There is no other rts multiplayer game, which is as popular or more. If there was a better rts multiplayer game, we would not play sc2. You overestimate marketing so much... But I agree Sc2 is a great game
I wasnt finished with writing (edited my post). Sc2 had great marketing at release. But its not enough, if you want a vibrant community. The number of 1vs1 ranked ladder players stays constant, thats good, but its also part of the problem. We need fresh blood!
Better marketing, better starter-kit, more mods like co-op for casuals helps and blizzard has done a good job in the past year.
But i could understand if they let their developers work on more profitable games. I believe they analyzed the situation and come to the conclusion that sc2 has reached its peak (cant grow any further in this game environment). When you have games like hearthstone, overwatch, diablo or world of warcraft, its hard to justify developer time for sc2.
EDIT:
I dont disagree with you. I am talking more about the opinion of the community.
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i'd also like to add that since Greg Black and Tim Morten have been added to the Sc2 team i really like the direction SC2 has gone and i think their contributions have gone a long way to slowing the decline of the SC2 player base.
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On November 30 2016 09:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
i'd also like to add that since Greg Black and Tim Morten have been added to the Sc2 team i really like the direction SC2 has gone and i think their contributions have gone a long way to slowing the decline of the SC2 player base.
Thank you for reminding us. It will take time for them to undo the damage but the healing began when they revealed that coop was doing better than multiplayer. I think that showed incontrovertible proof that catering to casuals is actually healthy for the game in general.
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Morten and Black worked on RA3 which had an entire Co-Op campaign. The Co-Op "Commanders" are basically "Generals" from C&C Generals.
i play Co-Op with my Silver ( her 1v1 rank) League 2v2 team-mate. Her APM is 40 and she is not devoting any of her spare time to "getting better at Starcraft2". like none. she does have this other mysterious resource though.. its called ..ummm money.
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SC2 is a good game, and I wish that I were better at it. But I have over 300 games on Steam, I have many on the PS4, I have a HTC Vive and a PSVR.
I simply do not have the spare time to devote to gaining mastery of SC2, if at all possible. Nowadays there are just too many interesting options for my limited gaming time.
Co-Op and other user friendly modes are great for letting me just jump in for an hour without the stress of 1v1, or the need to devote hours to practice. It keeps me interested in SC2 and in fact the only eSports or streams that I watch are all SC2 related.
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On November 30 2016 06:43 todespolka wrote:I wasnt finished with writing (edited my post). Sc2 had great marketing at release. But its not enough, if you want a vibrant community. The number of 1vs1 ranked ladder players stays constant, thats good, but its also part of the problem. We need fresh blood!
Better marketing, better starter-kit, more mods like co-op for casuals helps and blizzard has done a good job in the past year.
But i could understand if they let their developers work on more profitable games. I believe they analyzed the situation and come to the conclusion that sc2 has reached its peak (cant grow any further in this game environment). When you have games like hearthstone, overwatch, diablo or world of warcraft, its hard to justify developer time for sc2.
EDIT:
I dont disagree with you. I am talking more about the opinion of the community.
Marketing only goes so far. When even the pros are complaining about the game not being fun, you know there's a problem.
I also dislike this idea that casual players should play coop. I want to play and enjoy an RTS game against another human being, not against stupid, overpowered, AI-controlled units. Meanwhile, there are some really good PvE players who might be frustrated at how coop mode is considered casual and should therefore not be as challenging as PvP (player vs. player, not Protoss vs. Protoss).
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On November 30 2016 12:44 DeadByDawn wrote:
SC2 is a good game, and I wish that I were better at it. But I have over 300 games on Steam, I have many on the PS4, I have a HTC Vive and a PSVR.
I simply do not have the spare time to devote to gaining mastery of SC2, if at all possible. Nowadays there are just too many interesting options for my limited gaming time.
Co-Op and other user friendly modes are great for letting me just jump in for an hour without the stress of 1v1, or the need to devote hours to practice. It keeps me interested in SC2 and in fact the only eSports or streams that I watch are all SC2 related.
Another example of someone not playing SC2 due to competition of audience.
Let's just agree that the decline of SC2 is a multi-factor cause that can't be quantified or qualified by any of us.
We all have our reasons to either play or not play SC2, but we should stop bickering about any specific reason or tout our opinions as facts.
Even the cyclical effect of the 'dead game' meme is a factor.
I honestly don't think this discussion is helpful in anyway. It is insightful, but will not in a significant way slow down or reverse the decline of SC2.
That job is for Blizzard.
It's our job to tell them if they are doing there job well. Whether that's through feedback on the patch, playing the game more, creating threads on reddit/tl/bnet forums, and even sending emails directly to Blizzard. Please be polite and informative if you want to write a thread or email. It will be more helpful and go a lot further.
Of course we could help revert the decline, but that's a big task. First, it would take the entire community to agree to cooperate. That means even someone like Avilo needs to stop with his constant threads touting his opinion is fact, and start acting a little bit more humble on his thread. Everyone needs to do the same. TL users could use a little humiltity.
Next, each of us has to be the ambassador for SC2, and actively encourage all of our friends, coworkers, family, and everyone we know to get back into the game or start playing. We also have to produce online content or point to content already online for everyone in our circle to watch.
And there is probably more to do to get a grassroots movement like this to work. However this movement requires everyone to have a passion power level over 1,000,000,000,000.
So let's let Blizzard handle it.
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On November 30 2016 13:17 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2016 12:44 DeadByDawn wrote:
SC2 is a good game, and I wish that I were better at it. But I have over 300 games on Steam, I have many on the PS4, I have a HTC Vive and a PSVR.
I simply do not have the spare time to devote to gaining mastery of SC2, if at all possible. Nowadays there are just too many interesting options for my limited gaming time.
Co-Op and other user friendly modes are great for letting me just jump in for an hour without the stress of 1v1, or the need to devote hours to practice. It keeps me interested in SC2 and in fact the only eSports or streams that I watch are all SC2 related.
.... Of course we could help revert the decline, but that's a big task. First, it would take the entire community to agree to cooperate. That means even someone like Avilo needs to stop with his constant threads touting his opinion is fact, and start acting a little bit more humble on his thread. Everyone needs to do the same. TL users could use a little humiltity. Next, each of us has to be the ambassador for SC2, and actively encourage all of our friends, coworkers, family, and everyone we know to get back into the game or start playing. We also have to produce online content or point to content already online for everyone in our circle to watch. And there is probably more to do to get a grassroots movement like this to work. However this movement requires everyone to have a passion power level over 1,000,000,000,000. So let's let Blizzard handle it.
This is exactly the attitude that I find so unethical in (parts) of the SC2 gaming community, no offense. I'm sure you don't mean it to sound that way, but it really comes across in a bad way.
Basically you are saying that in order to turn the game around, everyone just needs to be as aggressive as possible in marketing it, and that factor *alone* will determine how many people play SC2. As if marketing is the only problem, as if the game itself had no issues, in spite of the fact that you said the decline of SC2 was multifaceted and surely gameplay is one of the issues. When you continuously, and actively press your friends, family, to play your game (and not in a gentle way, you actually have to push them to do this, which I find fairly offensive), they will eventually:
(a) give up their free will and play your game because you keep pushing them, which is a horrible precedent and not a good reason for anyone to do anything because its unethical
(b) realize they made a horrible mistake and now realize how wonderful the game is that they already decided to stop playing a year or more ago (pretty unlikely).
Its not a factor of the community's willpower to push their friends, family, and co-workers to play their game. You can definitely introduce them to it, but that *alone* is not going to determine the success of SC2 unless you literally badger them until they start playing your game again, which is of course totally unethical.
It is highly unlikely that marketing alone is the cause of SC2's decline. It has had tons of exposure in popular media, back when SC2 was one of the only huge esports games being showed at major tournaments. Slowly other games have gained prominence, many of them with nothing but word of mouth advertising.
I think it is fairly obvious that there is something fundamentally wrong about the core gameplay.If I look to the right at this very moment, Nada and Sea have 2000 viewers each for StarCraft: Brood war. BROOD WAR! A game that came out more than two decades ago. Meanwhile the top two SC2 streamers share roughly 200 streamers each. Is this because Brood war has better advertising?? I don't think so
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On November 30 2016 12:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Morten and Black worked on RA3 which had an entire Co-Op campaign. The Co-Op "Commanders" are basically "Generals" from C&C Generals.
i play Co-Op with my Silver ( her 1v1 rank) League 2v2 team-mate. Her APM is 40 and she is not devoting any of her spare time to "getting better at Starcraft2". like none. she does have this other mysterious resource though.. its called ..ummm money.
Red alert 3 actually had almost perfect balance. And i'm not being sarcastic. There were some crazy OP MCV rushes but RA3 was for the most part really well balanced from what i remember. Way more than CnC3. I'm not surprised Morten was a part of that game.
I wonder what the hell is going on right now with this latest SC2 patch tho.
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I think you're forgetting some factors here.
4 years ago, the launch of CS GO making it a big competitor for sc2
5 years ago there was the 1st Worlds Championship of League of Legends making people gain interest into the game
Withing those years other games came out with their tournaments and huge cashprizes that attract people interested in competitive play
The fact that League of Legends was a free to play and that high ranked players streaming and interacting with their viewers, anybody could connect with them (from total newbie to good player) whereas you GENERALLY didn't go to sc2 streamers for the LuLz they could give you, but to see how their gameplay or strategies.
Sc2 requires knowledge and mechanics that take time and willingness to try to master, not everybody is willing to do that,so making the scene grow is hard.
"But we still had a shitload of viewership"
Why was it the case 4 years ago ?
Alot of people bought sc2 at it's launch due to all the hype around it, they played the compaign, probably tried to ladder a bit and voila, but that's a whole bunch of people with sc2 basic knowledge, so what do you do when tournaments are announced with some of the best players in the world or in your region ? You tune in and try to see how good some people have managed to get and ofcourse that weighs off over the years.
Even if you didn't play sc2 it was still something you could watch without knowing shit, of course you didn't understand any of the mind games happening or why/how/what some strategies were used but you could still appreciate those dank splits.
The other social issue is usually on multiplayer games, you get to play with other people with whom you bond, and that is another thing that keeps some players on the game, you might not be motivated to keep on playing but you like the persons you get to play with so you have fun in another way. (I'm not saying that we don't get any social interaction on sc2 but I so far haven't bonded with as much people as on other games and I wouldn't be surprised if it's almost everybody's case)
And for the viewers on Twitch, a remember LoL streamers hitting 60k viewers almost every night, but now 10k is decent
1/6th of their viewership lost ! does it mean LoL is declining ? nope, just that there is alot more content on Twitch thanks to other streamers and other games.
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for me, LoTV is awful, i stopped playing it after few games and I even didn't played single missions after first three because it is not interesting (that never happened to me and i am playing SC till 1999.). obviously i am not the only one. so many changes were made to "make game better" and appealing to masses but effect was opposite.
blizzard forgot about casual players and that is it... i could write a novel here but that will change nothing so i will stop.
anyway, great thread, thanks firecake.
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And nowadays many people are putting their interest in games depending on where they are on Twitch... don't have any proof, but can't help this feeling
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When I talk to people in person 100% of the SC2 players say that they love the game but don't have time to get good at it. 100% of the League players say that the game is alright, its nice that its free and that they don't need to put that much time into it.
And this spreads to all other games as well. For the most part, the main reason people don't play SC2 is that its too hard and takes too much dedication when they already have a tonne of options out there to improve and learn from.
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On December 01 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:
When I talk to people in person 100% of the SC2 players say that they love the game but don't have time to get good at it. 100% of the League players say that the game is alright, its nice that its free and that they don't need to put that much time into it.
And this spreads to all other games as well. For the most part, the main reason people don't play SC2 is that its too hard and takes too much dedication when they already have a tonne of options out there to improve and learn from.
I heard the same thing from many others.
They don't think its poorly designed, or imbalanced.
They just don't have the time to get good or even try. And with so many other games that have a lower barrier to entry, I suspect that is the biggest culprit.
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On December 01 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:
When I talk to people in person 100% of the SC2 players say that they love the game but don't have time to get good at it. 100% of the League players say that the game is alright, its nice that its free and that they don't need to put that much time into it.
And this spreads to all other games as well. For the most part, the main reason people don't play SC2 is that its too hard and takes too much dedication when they already have a tonne of options out there to improve and learn from.
You want the truth? Coming from someone that did SC2 => dota2.
Here's the difference, in MOBA and other team games, when u fail u can blame ur team. In SC2 u can't (well u blame balance, but u get the idea  ).
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On December 01 2016 02:33 Furikawari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:
When I talk to people in person 100% of the SC2 players say that they love the game but don't have time to get good at it. 100% of the League players say that the game is alright, its nice that its free and that they don't need to put that much time into it.
And this spreads to all other games as well. For the most part, the main reason people don't play SC2 is that its too hard and takes too much dedication when they already have a tonne of options out there to improve and learn from. You want the truth? Coming from someone that did SC2 => dota2. Here's the difference, in MOBA and other team games, when u fail u can blame ur team. In SC2 u can't (well u blame balance, but u get the idea ).
I think it was a mistake for Blizzard to push 1v1 as the flagship multiplayer mode for the game. No matter what, 1v1 will always be the most stressful experience for any casual, and no amount of good balance or fun design can change that. Blizzard did a good job of gradually releasing features to ease that 1v1 experience, but all those should have been in the game from the start. Neglecting team game issues and fumbling with the Arcade for a few years only further compounded the problem.
The player base should be a pyramid. The 1v1 experience should be at the top with everything else below it. Making that structure too top-heavy hurt the game in my opinion. I think co-op was a great step in the right direction to correct that, and hopefully it can continue to retain existing players or even grow the game with casual players that may stick around to follow the pro scene or try out other modes like 1v1.
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On December 01 2016 02:33 Furikawari wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:
When I talk to people in person 100% of the SC2 players say that they love the game but don't have time to get good at it. 100% of the League players say that the game is alright, its nice that its free and that they don't need to put that much time into it.
And this spreads to all other games as well. For the most part, the main reason people don't play SC2 is that its too hard and takes too much dedication when they already have a tonne of options out there to improve and learn from. You want the truth? Coming from someone that did SC2 => dota2. Here's the difference, in MOBA and other team games, when u fail u can blame ur team. In SC2 u can't (well u blame balance, but u get the idea ).
While there are certainly a few players out there that can't accept blame, I honestly don't think that is the majority.
Even when I play Overwatch, I don't get a lot of players blaming the team. Sure 1 in 10 games someone starts getting salty and thinks their team sucks, but that is 1 player out of 120.
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On December 01 2016 02:54 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2016 02:33 Furikawari wrote:On December 01 2016 02:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:
When I talk to people in person 100% of the SC2 players say that they love the game but don't have time to get good at it. 100% of the League players say that the game is alright, its nice that its free and that they don't need to put that much time into it.
And this spreads to all other games as well. For the most part, the main reason people don't play SC2 is that its too hard and takes too much dedication when they already have a tonne of options out there to improve and learn from. You want the truth? Coming from someone that did SC2 => dota2. Here's the difference, in MOBA and other team games, when u fail u can blame ur team. In SC2 u can't (well u blame balance, but u get the idea ). While there are certainly a few players out there that can't accept blame, I honestly don't think that is the majority. Even when I play Overwatch, I don't get a lot of players blaming the team. Sure 1 in 10 games someone starts getting salty and thinks their team sucks, but that is 1 player out of 120.
People don't need to yell *at you* to be blame you. Most people blame post game, usually when "casually" chatting about it with their friends.
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EPT
